Have you ever had the experience of sitting down to take a final exam and the professor has given you a choice to write about one of the two topics you know like the back of your hand? And, as you write that essay, fingers flying across the page, you can’t help but feel that you are cheating, even though you know you’re not? Well, for reasons that will become clear, this is how I feel today.

I am moved and grateful that we have the zechus to celebrate today, as a community, the 90th birthday of my mother, Dr. Rita Kuhn. She sits here among us, with us, and perhaps most importantly for us as a testament to the resiliency of the human soul. All of us have faced adversity in life and overcome them. Some of us continually overcome them. I take the liberty of assuming too, that all of us have experienced private moments of existential angst and estrangement from the Divine. This is the human condition – we ebb and flow like the sea upon the shores of God’s embrace. I hope we can all agree, however, that a survivor of the Shoah, sails in a different sort of vessel. The shores are rockier and the waters rougher. Yet God’s lighthouse shines for their arrival, as for any other (perhaps just a little brighter), and the port is always open.

In this week’s parsha, Vayishlach, B’nai Yisrael receives its name after Yaakov Avinu wrestles with the angel of God and survives. Yaakov requests a bracha from the angel and it replies, “Your name will no longer be said to be Yaakov, but Israel. You have become great before God and man. You have won.” Yaakov then insists on knowing the angel’s name. The angel responds by blessing Yaakov again. After this encounter, Yaakov declares, “I have seen the Divine face-to-face and [in Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan’s translation] my soul has withstood it.” The translation in the Rabbi Shimshon Hirsch edition, however, reads, “and my character has remained intact.”

I am not going to go into the commentaries and riddles of translation. Translation, after all, is interpretation. And, while, my Hebrew is not strong enough to delve into the exact nuance of “Tinatzel Nafshi,” I would, for today, like to go with Rabbi Hirsch’s version of “my character has remained intact.” Why does Yaakov state that? Here he is, injured, barely able to walk on the eve of a potentially fatal battle with his brother Esav, and he talks about his “character being intact”?! What about his fighting strength and battle-ready endurance that he just expended on fighting an angel all night long? Character?! Why would he say such a thing?

And yet. And yet, in doing so, Yaakov touches the Ikar – the heart of the matter.

What is the most deeply humane response to the threat of annihilation? What is the sane response to having wrestled with God in the darkest darkness of night?

I believe that I have been raised by a woman who emulates that response. Allow me, please, to tell you a little bit about my mother’s character.

Rita, born in 1927 Berlin, left Germany alone in 1948. She lost over a dozen family members, and countless school friends. She boarded the Marine Flasher, set sail for America, with the hope that her remaining family members would soon follow. When they couldn’t join her due to my grandmother’s illness, my mother forged her way ahead in New York city, as so many immigrants have, despite her loneliness and heartache. The education that the Nazis had denied her, she reclaimed.

In 1950, she was diagnosed with melanoma, caused by the strain upon her feet in shoes too small during her forced labor. Beth Israel hospital in Boston performed surgery right away, and the life that was almost taken from her yet again, she reclaimed.

My mother, upon meeting and marrying my father, was blessed with the arrival of four healthy children. After they divorced, she completed her PhD in comparative literature from UC Berkeley, while raising us as a single mother. The home that was lost to her in the war, she reclaimed.

I am still not entirely sure how she created the home for us that she did. Now that I am a working mother, it perplexes me more than ever. Home sewn clothes. All our food made from scratch. She reconditioned and reupholstered our furniture. She kept track of our chores, our music lessons, and doctor appointments. She walked up three blocks of Marin Avenue with groceries (no, she never owned a car), and somehow, in the midst of this, even our school work somehow always fell into place. She created a home that breathed peace and beauty and sanctity. The haven of home that her mother had built in Berlin, my mother then reclaimed.

For the sake of brevity and privacy, I will not recount all her losses and subsequent amazing accomplishments (of which there are many, including the upcoming publication of her first novel, Another Ruth, and Yad Vashem’s translation into Hebrew of her first book, Broken Glass, Broken Lives: A Jewish Girl’s Survival Story in Berlin, 1933-1945.)

What I would like to say to you, CBI’ers, and specifically to you, Mutti, is this:

I believe the deepest lesson in Yaakov’s struggle with the angel lies not just in the fact that he survived, but in Yaakov’s profound response to his survival. The angel did not state his own name. He was the nameless darkness, the arbiter of human courage and fate. Perhaps the angel’s name was Death, or Fear. Maybe he was Despair, or Hate, or Cowardice. Perhaps it was the angel of Esav come to test him or exhaust him. But the angel’s name is immaterial to the fact that Yaakov defeated it, and, upon defeating it, examined himself within and found that his character was still intact. He was undeterred. He was still a man of faith (though modified), he was still a man of light (though shadowed), and ultimately, he was a man of thought (though complex). He emerged and survived as a full Mensch (person), by retaining his humanity in the face of darkness, and by retaining the ability to live and wrestle with the inherent contradictions of human existence.That night, Yaakov reclaimed his soul from despair. And only then was he able to face his brother.

Mutti, you have built a tower upon your struggle with God. You have built floors upon floors within that tower. At the beginning, it was floors dedicated to your education. Then it was many, many floors dedicated to the education of your children. And, after that, floors upon floors upon floors of commitment and devotion to the education of other children. And, most importantly, during the construction of that tower, Mutti, your character remained intact.

Mutti, you and I have our disagreements. Good Lord, that’s a relief to say. How many of you here thought otherwise? But I tell you what, Mom, keep on wrangling with God because, Lord knows, you have far more staying power than I have. Keep on asking the hard questions, and keep on refusing run of the mill answers (and please, don’t ask me, because I don’t have any answers – ask Rabbi Cohen!).

Mutti, you, like so many, were marked for annihilation. Your body was enslaved and, from that enslavement, was almost broken by cancer. Your spirit could have been broken too, but it wasn’t. You chose, like Yaakov, to defeat the angel that tried to hold you back. You chose to fight for your humanity. You chose not to give up on God, but to wrestle with Him. You chose Hope. You chose to remain a Jew. You reclaimed your soul.

That is why this parsha was a gift from my Professor on High. How could I not ace the exam when the subject material is you and Yaakov?

I am humbled and grateful to be your daughter, Mutti. Happy birthday.

]]>https://ruthwiseman.com/2017/12/03/muttis-90th-birthday-kiddush/feed/0ruwiseChapter Two – The Battlehttps://ruthwiseman.com/2017/06/23/chapter-two-the-battle/
https://ruthwiseman.com/2017/06/23/chapter-two-the-battle/#respondFri, 23 Jun 2017 19:47:21 +0000http://ruthwiseman.com/?p=312Continue reading Chapter Two – The Battle]]>I am 3 or 4 years old.
My arch enemy sits in front of me.
I have mustered all my strength to fight, not to give in.
I am steel. I am solid, implacable will.

To outsiders, I am an unrepentant, unapologetic, uncooperative child. To me, the insider, I am a person holding on to my very sense of self. I am a hero. I am a wronged innocent.

The enemy is green.
I have met him before.
We always have the same stare down. I am infuriated if he wins.
Never again.

But my mother is his ally, his sponsor, his captain-in-arms, his cheerleader, spokesperson, champion, press corps, litigator, and well, his best friend. In fact, my 3-year old self is convinced she created him. Why, after all, am I not allowed to leave his presence? Why must I sit here, interminably, if the enemy is not her very own personal creation?

I remain in my chair. The enemy remains before me. Mom and I do not speak. She is washing dishes in the kitchen. My sisters have left and are up in their rooms, doing whatever cool and fun things older sisters get to do when they are not the intractable, stubborn warrior. I have a choice to make. I can let the enemy win again. Or I can take my final stand. It means the ultimate risk; my mother’s disapproval and possible discipline. She is never harsh, never hurtful, but being shut out of her world is devastating to me. Her silence feels worse than anger. It is frightening, especially because I believe I am the culprit. I want only to experience the sunshine of her gentle, nurturing love.

Her love is the best and safest place in the world. It is the world where she teaches us to make our own play-doh, or sew doll clothes. It is the world where I get to sit on the kitchen counter and bake cookies with her. It is where I can show her my boo-boos and she takes care of them. At the end of the day, it is the world where, without fail, she brings a cup of milk at night to my bedside and kisses me in the center of my forehead. That is the real reason I don’t like babysitters. They never do that. Even if they would try, I wouldn’t accept it from them. They never understand me. I am not their last child. I am not their shield and their sword.

Rachel and Sarah understand, though. “Mom, you always give her things she wants, but you never give to us! You spoil her just cuz she’s the youngest. It’s not fair!” I hear this, and my little heart agrees with them. My little heart thrills at their words! But outside, I sulk. I defend myself. I consider that I am always getting their hand-me-downs. I think about the fact that when they get to be the fairies and the nymphs, I am consigned to be “Witchy-Poo” who lives in the attic, wears striped tights, some old weird t-shirt and who knows what else. Why, in fact, just the other day, Sarah and I played “For the Poor Ducks, For the Rich Swans,” in which she regally divvied up the fabric scraps my mother gives us from time to time. I am just so happy my sister is playing with me, that I will consent to being a lily pad, just to have her near me. So, no, it all balances out. They make sure of that. Just the right touch of indulgence from my mother, and the humbling reminders from my sisters, that I am ever and forever the baby of the family.

But tonight Mom will prove that she is not spoiling me. Tonight the enemy will win. I will eat my peas and spinach just like my sisters did. She will vanquish my stubbornness. It is only a matter of time. One hour passes. Two hours. I sit. I am quiet. I stare at my plate and ask myself, “Why do I have to eat this, when I ate all my meat, and my potatoes, and I ate the fat from my sister’s plates, and I’m full, and these vegetables make me gag? No, I won’t. Not ever. Never.”

Mom has been sitting and reading in the living room. I hear her sigh. My hope surges. It is the first sign of defeat. I will not back down now. She’s weakening. Anyway, the vegetables are cold and gross, and I know my mother is not so horrible as to make me eat them now. Another moment passes. She sets down her book and walks to the kitchen again. She goes to check on Rachel and Sarah and remind them to get ready for bed. Then she is in the dining room. I don’t look at her.

Suddenly, a miracle. Slowly, ever so slowly, she removes my plate from the table with the wretched gaggable green enemy on it. My heart is soaring. Victory is at hand. She takes it to the kitchen. I watch; will she save it for me to eat tomorrow? What will she do with it? I have never once seen my mother throw food away. She says, “Ruthie, it is time for bed. Go now, get in your pajamas and brush your teeth. I will come tuck you in.” I run out of the room quickly before she changes her mind. True to her word, she tucks me in, kisses me good-night and leaves the room.

My battle is over. I will never again be forced to sit at the table until every bite is off my plate. I will never again be forced to eat a vegetable. But the war has not ended. My guilt will make sure of that. Yet, that night, I sleep deeply and happily, oblivious to the pain my mother experiences when she sees uneaten food. She returns to the kitchen. She eats my cold peas and spinach. She washes my plate and cup.

It is difficult for me, as I reflect on my journey, to tease apart the ramifications that my parents’ divorce had on me versus the wartime experiences of my mother. The trauma of living though Nazi Germany, adjusting alone to life in America, and eventually marrying a Methodist raised Harvard scholar, was all wrapped up into the many strands that became my mother. I know the trajectory, I know the motives at play. As any human life can testify, they are complicated. A Shoah survivor’s personhood is not purely an outcome of the ravages of Nazi brutality, but also of their own upbringing, their family, their social environs, and their innate personality. Do our temperaments become crystallized when we experience trauma, thereby making it harder to overcome issues that, under normal circumstances, are manageable? It seems true in my mother’s case.

Here is an example. My mother was a forced laborer on a munitions assembly line in Berlin. This was her first assignment, later she worked on the railway system. She rose every morning before sunrise, without central heating, into a cold and hostile world. She had a meager breakfast and then made her way to the factory, in shoes that were too small, to stand for 11 (or more) hours each day. One day, she was especially exhausted and preoccupied by what was happening around her; friends taken, tighter rations, propaganda, parades. Suddenly, the factory foreman approached her, yelling at her, with what looked like a large stick raised above his head. She fainted then and there. When she regained consciousness, the foreman was hovering over her anxiously. He told her that he saw she was about to make a horrible mistake and was trying to warn her. She, understandably, thought he was going to beat her when he had approached. We most likely have him to thank that our mother retains all her fingers.

Present day. There is a toaster oven. It is new. It has three knobs. My mother is immediately overwhelmed. I am sure her limited eyesight is an added frustration, but the toaster oven is not really so different from the one she had for 15 years. Nonetheless, it has become Enemy #1. I show her how it works. My older daughter shows her how it works. My younger daughter shows her how it works. My sister shows her. Mom’s volunteer shows her. I put stickers on it to indicate the controls and temperature. But the fear persists. It is as though her mind is willing itself not to understand. And then, of course, comes the inevitable, ever-present statement we’ve heard all our lives,

“Ach, Ruth, you know, me and machines have such a difficult relationship.”

I recount this with conflicted compassion, as I do so many things about my mother. Compassion, because how can I understand the emotional strain she has endured; how can I expect a sensitive soul that was wounded so early in life not to have its phobias and anxieties? Conflicted, because the task at hand seems so utterly simple, yet my mother is reduced to a childlike helplessness – it makes me panic. Simultaneously, unfair impatience and anger build in me, which I try to suppress with immense, unwieldy guilt. All this, in a split second, because of a toaster oven.

And there it is again, the dark glove; its grip on my psyche, on my mother’s psyche. It holds us in one hand; we face each other. As I struggle to free myself from the glove, it feels as though I am struggling to get away from my mother. That is when I nearly give up. The thought of abandoning her to the glove’s grip is enough to paralyze me, for she herself will never leave.

And history will never leave us.

]]>https://ruthwiseman.com/2017/05/17/chapter-one-continued/feed/0ruwiseJewish Book Council Reviewhttps://ruthwiseman.com/2017/05/12/jewish-book-council-review/
https://ruthwiseman.com/2017/05/12/jewish-book-council-review/#commentsFri, 12 May 2017 14:19:10 +0000http://ruthwiseman.com/?p=289I am very happy to receive a lovely review from Michal Malen at the Jewish Book Council.

]]>https://ruthwiseman.com/2017/05/12/jewish-book-council-review/feed/1ruwiseIMG_0726Book Release Party Funhttps://ruthwiseman.com/2017/05/11/book-release-party-fun/
https://ruthwiseman.com/2017/05/11/book-release-party-fun/#respondThu, 11 May 2017 04:51:35 +0000http://ruthwiseman.com/?p=256It was a terrific day on Sunday, May 7, at Afikomen Judaica. We had lovely sun, moon, and star cookies, lots of children, and adult guests to celebrate the release of How the Moon Became Dim. Thank you, Nell and Chaim Mahgel-Friedman for hosting, and to all my friends and family for your support.

]]>https://ruthwiseman.com/2017/05/11/book-release-party-fun/feed/0ruwiseThe Glovehttps://ruthwiseman.com/2017/05/07/chapter-one-the-glove/
https://ruthwiseman.com/2017/05/07/chapter-one-the-glove/#commentsSun, 07 May 2017 07:41:53 +0000http://ruthwiseman.com/?p=240Continue reading The Glove]]>A black leather glove in my peripheral vision triggered terror in me. A panic rose in my body as the ominous, sinister gloved hand moved towards me. These descriptive words came much later. At that moment, it was only a scream and a sob, followed by another scream, another sob. Within seconds, my mother’s voice floated in the air above and behind me. “What is it, puppchen? Why are you crying?” And I, more terrified than ever, by the disembodied glove, the hovering voice, could not respond, merely cry out.

Then, my mother appeared before me. She was kneeling down, so her eyes were level with mine in my stroller. She reached out to comfort me and it was not her familiar hand that I saw, but a black gloved one, and I started a new fit of coughing sobs. My sisters finally figured it out, “Mommy, mommy, it’s your gloves, she scared of your gloves!” My mother laughed, and asked me gently, “Is that it, sweetheart? Here, watch this,” she said, and proceeded to take them off, then on again, off again, on again.

Safety returned. Love and warmth surrounded me. Gratitude towards my siblings enveloped me. No words, only pure emotion. My blanket was adjusted, my cheek was kissed, tears wiped away, and I rocked back to sleep in my little stroller as we made our way through the Berkeley streets.

I suppose many people’s earliest memories stem from fearful moments. They are so primal, it is not surprising they stay with us forever. But I continue to ask myself, how is it possible that those gloves created such a reaction in me? Had I never seen them before? Was she not wearing them when we left the house? How could I associate black gloves with something frightening? Isn’t that a learned association with detective novels or thriller movies – or Nazis? I suppose it is possible to read too much into such a small event of a 2-year old mind, but it lingers nonetheless. It lingers along with the memories of nightmares that held skeletons upon skeletons. I was almost too scared to make it to my mother’s room, but the comfort of her smell compelled me to find my courage. She let me remain until I was no longer afraid then sent me back to my room.

Perhaps I always sensed a darkness in my mother. It was not a darkness of her personality. Rather, it was as though her shadow was denser than others that I knew. It was in her quietness, in a quick glance of her eyes, in the subtle downturn of her mouth. She was a beautiful woman, and this mysterious gravity added a depth and inaccessibility to her that was probably tantalizing and eventually maddening to men, but it produced an inordinate sense of attachment and guilt in me. I cannot speak for my three older siblings; they responded in their own individual ways to our mother’s emotional world. Thankfully, her love for us held us in good stead and we remain close and trusting.

My birth in July 1965 coincided with the final unravelling of my parents’ 14-year marriage. I suppose my father was still there when I came home from the hospital; he must have taken the photos of me with my enormously curly head of dark hair. I feel like I remember the turtle toy that is next to me in the photo, but it is only because I have seen that picture so many times. Many years later, my first daughter was born and she too had a turtle toy, with a string that when pulled played a little song. I took a picture of her with that next to her as well.

I have not seen any photos of Dad holding me when I was a baby, although I am sure he did. But when I was only three months old, he and Mom separated. The well of emotion in my mother from that break found an easy receptacle in my tender and sweet-smelling infant self. I sometimes imagine my 38- year old mother holding me and saying, “How could he leave you, just an infant? How could he walk out?” But I know that she is the one who asked him to leave. Maybe she didn’t think he really would; maybe she was challenging him – “Go ahead, see if you can leave a newborn infant, two toddlers, and a new teenager? Go ahead and show me what kind of man you are.”

I believe it was at that moment that I became both a weapon and a comfort.

]]>https://ruthwiseman.com/2017/05/07/chapter-one-the-glove/feed/2ruwiseYom Ha’Atzmauthttps://ruthwiseman.com/2017/05/02/yom-haatzmaut/
https://ruthwiseman.com/2017/05/02/yom-haatzmaut/#respondTue, 02 May 2017 17:07:40 +0000http://ruthwiseman.com/?p=227Continue reading Yom Ha’Atzmaut]]>It is possible to drown in the grief,to let the wolves gnarl on its bones,to lie down, to succumb,allowing the peace of love’s chamber to engulf you.

Wretched griefarising from love;

Love eternal, endless, all-embracingwants no separation, no end.

Yet grief’s darkness overcomes us;grief for those taken too soon, taken by barriers,by force, by cruelty, by disease, by war,by life’s natural end.

Reach now for that miserably frayed
thread of light
and grasp it.

It calls for you, it needs you.It will restore you,as you strengthen it.

]]>https://ruthwiseman.com/2017/05/01/she-recedes/feed/0ruwiseSurvival’s Shadow: Prologuehttps://ruthwiseman.com/2017/05/01/prologue/
https://ruthwiseman.com/2017/05/01/prologue/#respondMon, 01 May 2017 01:07:32 +0000http://ruthwiseman.com/?p=209Continue reading Survival’s Shadow: Prologue]]>I don’t remember when I learned about the rooms, but I always knew of their existence. It sounds contradictory, but I lived it. If you are an honest person, you know that we can live inside contradictions quite easily. The problem begins when we become aware of them.

We had rooms of music, literature, and art, a room of maternal nurturance and savory home made foods, the room of unspoken fears (the door open, fear falling outward, never enough space), the room of father-absent-yet loved (who is he?), the room of our mother’s pain (tread carefully when the door is ajar), rooms of guilt, of otherness, of loss, but most importantly the room filled with questions I could not ask (this one, locked firmly).

So yes, the rooms were always there and we inhabited them seamlessly through the staircases, hallways, and windows with which they were connected. But the locked ones, they had a force field surrounding them, they emitted a magnetic power, sometimes attracting, sometimes repelling me. And always inaccessible.

Perhaps you think these rooms represent a fractured identity, or the sides of an identity, like the sides of a prism. Yet a prism is whole, and an identity is already formed. I was neither. I was a child. Still forming. Still questioning, still grasping.

Do we become whole? Maybe it is that the child becomes the sun around which we orbit. It is the control tower emitting to us safety messages and traffic patterns (right, wrong, imprecise, no matter). Our challenge is to shift the constellation of our personalities from the orbital fears and needs of the child, to the clarity and perspective of an evolved adult.

This is my journey of evolution. It is, at least, my attempt to process it and share it. There is no end. There will only be a last page of the narrative I produce.